Princess / author enchants young readers

Published: Thursday, October 24, 2013 at 07:04 PM.

It’s unusual for small schools to get visiting authors, and even more unusual for them to be wearing tiaras, glitter eye makeup and frilly princess-style dresses.

Alethea Kontis broke all those barriers Thursday when she visited the Burlington School.

A friend from childhood, Margo Appenzeller, with a daughter in the Burlington School, recruited Kontis to visit while she was in the area. She will spend the weekend at the Comic Book City Convention at the Empire Room on South Elm Street in Greensboro.

Kontis started with the younger kids at the Greenwood Terrace campus where the third-graders put on a play they wrote about the letters of the alphabet.

That is the subject of three of her children’s books like “AlphaOops!: The Day Z Went First.” She said the play was both well-done and hysterical.

At the Davis Street campus, which teaches ninth through 12th-graders, she talked about her more recent young-adult books “Enchanted” and “Hero.”

Those are both young adult fiction influenced by fairy tales. Grimm’s and Andersen’s fairy tales, she explained to Lauren Kalo, 14, and Cate Matthews, 15.

It’s unusual for small schools to get visiting authors, and even more unusual for them to be wearing tiaras, glitter eye makeup and frilly princess-style dresses.

Alethea Kontis broke all those barriers Thursday when she visited the Burlington School.

A friend from childhood, Margo Appenzeller, with a daughter in the Burlington School, recruited Kontis to visit while she was in the area. She will spend the weekend at the Comic Book City Convention at the Empire Room on South Elm Street in Greensboro.

Kontis started with the younger kids at the Greenwood Terrace campus where the third-graders put on a play they wrote about the letters of the alphabet.

That is the subject of three of her children’s books like “AlphaOops!: The Day Z Went First.” She said the play was both well-done and hysterical.

At the Davis Street campus, which teaches ninth through 12th-graders, she talked about her more recent young-adult books “Enchanted” and “Hero.”

Those are both young adult fiction influenced by fairy tales. Grimm’s and Andersen’s fairy tales, she explained to Lauren Kalo, 14, and Cate Matthews, 15.

“Not Disney,” Kontis said, “the ones where people get their eyes pecked out.”

The girls were obviously fascinated with Kontis and her career. They spent their free periods sitting with her at a table in a half of the gym arranged with long tables while some boys shot baskets with a miniature ball at the other end of the room.

Kalo said she wants to write for a music blog and was surprised by what Kontis had to say about the profession.

“I learned a lot about what an author’s life is actually like,” Kalo said. “I didn’t know they travel so much.”

Kontis does travel a lot. She lives in Northern Virginia, but in October she is scheduled for five appearances at libraries, schools, book stores and conventions, not including the one at the Burlington School.

Of course, this was the month her most recent book came out, “Hero.”

It is the second in what she expects to be a series of seven about a family with seven daughters named after the days of the week. She started with Sunday and is working her way backwards.

The first, “Enchanted,” she told the girls over a Subway sandwich and under a tiara, took her five years to write. The second took three months.

They were duly impressed.

“Once you’re on deadline,” Kontis said, “you do it or you don’t get paid.”

Kontis said she loves traditional publishing, even though she does publish online as well.

There are advantages and disadvantages to all of them, she says. Publishers pay twice a year, which can be hard to live with. Online publishers pay monthly, but authors have to do their own publicity.

Kontis has a presence in on all the social media sites, which eats lots of time, and she makes lots of appearances, which takes a lot of time and energy. Her pace last year, she said, actually left her ill.

“I love this, I love getting out and meeting kids,” Kontis said, but “next year I want to concentrate on productivity.”

While she started writing at eight and wrote her first novel in middle school, Kontis, 37, did not get published until about 10 years ago, and did not make a living at it until the past year.

Her career has mostly been spent around books. Kontis said she worked as a librarian, copy editor, interviewer, reviewer and bookseller.

“I wanted to know everything about publishing,” Kontis said.

After lunch, Kontis kept up the pace heading for “club time.” She met with a dozen students to talk about her writing process, the influences she, sometimes unconsciously, brings into her work and the downside of success.

“Once writing a book is a job, you love it a little less,” Kontis said, “which is sad.”